smaller

small reports- wool and the gang

Wool and the Gang is the brainchild of two old friends who make style with thick needles and they have just introduced a kids line. You can purchase the items ready made, individually handknitted in Peru, or buy the kits to knit them for yourself at home. All the wool and cotton has been sourced from Peru and comes with the kit, or you can buy the yarn directly from their site. Their blog and website takes you step by step with video help for beginners and is full of knitted inspiration for everyone else. There shop is stocked with great adult sized designs as well as kids and even has some free patterns you can try.

Besides staging international knitting parties, events and fashion parades the ladies behind Wool and the Gang have thier own cool store in downtown Manhattan that I am definitly checking out. Look at all those colors!

Small activities- kidsfest

If you are in New York there are lots of free and fun activites fro kids during kidsfest on the 23 of October. Click here to learn more.

small diy - Liberty Baby Bib Kit

I love these Baby Bib kits from Purl Soho. Each kit makes 4 bibs. The kit includes 2 fat-eighths of Liberty of London's Tana Lawn in complementary colors, 1/2 yard 100% Organic Cotton Terry, Gutermann 100% cotton sewing thread, 4 large nickel plated snaps, complete directions and a pattern template.

Purl Soho

Small craft- Sew Mama Sew

If you are a fabric addict like us, Sew Mama Sew is going to be impossible to resist. Their collection of fabrics, especially their Japanese imports, is perfectly selected to inspire big ideas for future sewing projects. You can justify picking up all that new fabric by also collecting a few patterns by Oliver + S or the many others in their shop to make up some new outfits for yourself or your little ones.

As well as fabric, patterns, tutorials and gifts you can check out their blog for wonderful handmade gift ideas. Each year they do a round up on their blog of the best hand made ideas for the holidays. You can see last years collection here or keep checking in for new great ideas for this year including the hand made fabric wings we featured in our summer issue.

small projects- hair slides

The talented illustrator and designer, Bess Harding from Beeb, is back with another fantastic craft project for you. This time she is going to show you how to make gorgeous girly hairslides.

Floral hair slides   This is a project for the girls! These flower hair slides are very pretty and fun to make, and make lovely gifts. I’ve written instructions, but do use the pictures for reference - I think they make more sense!  

You will need:

Fabric pieces between 6-12 cm square (cotton is ideal)

A tiny bit of felt

Hair slides

Scissors

Craft glue

What to do:

Cut your fabric into a circle with an indent of around 1cm (see picture).

Then cut a spiral into your circle so that you have a long 1cm wide twirl of fabric. Holding the middle, twist the fabric around itself to create a sort of flower (it will naturally want to do this), and when you get to the end, secure it with a dab of glue.   Take the felt and cut a small circle about the same size as the bottom of your little flower. Place it at the end of your hair slide, between the two ‘prongs’. Put a dab of glue on the felt, and lots on the bottom of the flower so that all the raw edges of the fabric are covered, and gently press the two together.  

Let it dry thoroughly and that’s it! You could then decorate by gluing little buttons or sequins or beads or flowers into the middle, or you could dip the petal edges in glue and then glitter. The same process can be used to make flower badges, and if you want to give them as gifts you can present them on a piece of colored card (see pictures).

small projects- bird mobile

The talented illustrator and designer, Bess Harding from Beeb, is back with another fantastic craft project for you. This time she has come up with an adorable bird mobile- although you could probably use the idea to make customized ones featuring your child's favorite animals.

Don't forget to check out Bess' inspiring blog and website and of course her Etsy shop for her toys and illustrations.

Small projects- tin pot project

The talented illustrated and designer Bess Harding from Beeb is back with another fantastic craft project for you.

Don't forget to check out her inspiring blog and website and of course her Etsy shop for her toys and illustrations

Tin pot project

There are so many gorgeous wrapping paper designs around these days, I thought it would be good to make something to take advantage of them! These tin pots can be used for storing anything you like, with or without lids. I’ve made three different sizes; I’m thinking paper clips in the small one, hair bands in the tall one and spare coins in the middle.

 

You will need

Lovely wrapping paper

Empty food tins (washed and dried)

Old cardboard box

Scissors/craft knife

Double sided tape

Pencil

Ruler

Paint

 

What to do

1. First make the lid by drawing round the tin on to your piece of cardboard. Cut out the circle making it a tiny bit smaller than the line. This is so that it will sit on the indent on the top inner edge of your tin rather than hover on top. You might need to cut and test for snugness, then cut a little more off if necessary.

2. Now decorate your lid. Either keep it simple and just paint it a contrasting or complimentary colour to your wrapping paper, or you could try one of the variations I’ve done: on one I cut a slot for money in the lid before painting it; on the second I glued a loop of ribbon to the underside of the lid so it’s easy to lift up; and on the third I cut out three small circles of card and glued them to each other and then to the lid to create a sort of handle. You could decorate with sequins or buttons or write someone’s name or what the content are on the lid too.

4. Put double sided tape along each end of the paper on the underside, and wrap round your tin, carefully lining up with the top edge and pressing down along the overlap to secure.

 

5. When your lid is dry pop it on top of the wrapped tin and start using it!

Small craft- throw an etsy craft party

Tommorrow is Etsy Craft Party Day. Click here to find out how to join the party or start your own.

Small projects- alphabet light box

Lisa Murray has sent us a new craft project that we know you will love. You might remember her last craft project- a padded rug for the nursery.  I saw this light box in her house and asked her to tell us how it was done. It requires some basic computer skills but once you have the photos you want to use you could probably find a friend in the know to do the layout for you.

How to make an ABC light box

You will need –

A digital camera
Indesign, Photoshop or Illustrator computer software or any other computer program that allows you to import multiple photos into an arrangement. 

A baby or kid to appreciate the finished product!

Step 1:Take a trip to the city to photograph some typography.  

Step 2: Create a grid within your computer program. After some playing around, I found 5squares across and 6 down to be the best layout as it keeps the letters in portrait format which means less cropping – much easier for an amateur such as myself! 

Step 3: Play around – import letters you like into the squares to make up the alphabet. So many possibilities, it’s just a matter of choosing which letters you think look best next to one another. 

Step 4: I put a black background behind my alphabet so any mistakes with alignment would be lost before printing. Save your file as a pdf & send it to the printers to have made into a transparency, or film to fit your light box. 

Step 5: Open your light box and position artwork, close light box and your done. Put it up in your child’s room and find yourself getting excited over your ABC’s all over again! 

Small events- Karen Kimmel art camp

Los Angeles-based installation artist and designer Karen Kimmel has one foolproof rule for teaching kids and grown-ups to appreciate art. Make it a party. Following the success of her ongoing "Art of Exchange" stencil workshops and the launch of her beautiful laser-cut stencil kits, the multi-talented mom of two recently brought over 50 families together at a two-day art camp in Palm Springs at the Ace Hotel.

Here's how the weekend went down:

The 48-hour adventure included everything from s'mores under the stars to a family movie night with luminescent glow sticks.  The art workshops ranged from designing your own Converse sneakers, to macramé, dioramas, and jewelry design made of scraps of cloth donated by American Apparel.  Parents joined the activities too, as one proud mom told us her scrap necklace was inspired by vintage Lanvin.  Evenings were spent with family style dinners (Taco night being the favorite) gathered around the camp fire. 

You can find more information and future dates here.

Reporting by Andrea Arria-Devoe -mom and freelance writer who has written for DailyCandy, Bon Appetit, and Edible Los Angeles

Photos by Erik Ian

The Best of Renegade Craft Fair Austin Part 2

Public School – Public School is a creative collective of 3 photographers, 4 designers and 1 illustrator based in Austin.  Their booth was filled with fantastic posters, one reading: “Tie your shoes, pack a good lunch and remember we are all in this together” and a photo booth where they were taking “class portraits”.  Would love these guys to do a shoot or illustrated story for Small!

Brooke & Adelyn – Organic children’s clothing hand stamped with ladybugs, twigs, flowers and butterflies on rompers, jumpers and dresses in soft pastel colors.

Leah Duncan – I was immediately drawn into Leah’s booth by the color palette of her illustrations and her textiles.  Pillows, tea towels and fabric adorned with geometric patterns and florals in soft grays, yellows, greens, and oranges. Beautiful!

Clay Wood & Cotton – A brick and mortar shop in Beacon, NY filled with small designers like, Kate Durkin  (pillows left) ceramics illustrated with birds by Take Me Homeware and handmade plush monsters by Karen’s Monsters.

 

The Best of Renegade Craft Fair Austin Part 1

Tinted Mint – Tape in tons of colors and patterns made of Japanese rice paper. I bought a few rolls for the kiddos (what kid doesn’t love tape?) and they had a blast taping shapes on paper and painting and drawing around it.

Lisa Chow – Beautiful illustrations of buildings suspended from stars and balloons on prints, cards and teas sets.

 

Miss Natalie –Looks like every creative thought Miss Natalie has ever had was executed perfectly and displayed beautifully in her booth.  Standouts: Natalie’s Don’t Forget Me Lunch Bags, Heirloom Growth Charts and Mail-A-Mask Postcards.

Mogo - Kimonos and tees in simple but original graphics and wooden pencil boxes and rings boxes adorned with bears and colorful cars, shapes and landscapes.

Small projects- Letter craft project

We love it when the talented Bess Harding of Beeb sends us her monthly craft. This would be a fun one to do for a baby gift or with kids. Check out Bess's blog for more creativity and her etsy shop for adorable softies and prints.

Letters Craft Project

Most people will be familiar with the kind of outsized letters you see so often in interiors magazines or gift shops these days - vintage, cool and propped casually on a shelf or hung artfully on a wall. But - in demand as they are - they can be expensive. So here’s how you and your kids can make them together at home.

 

You will need

 

Print outs of your chosen letters (optional)

Scissors

A craft knife

A pencil

Thick cardboard from an old brown box

Sheet of wrapping paper or paints

Paintbrushes

Wallpaper paste

What to do

 

1. Decide what letters you’re going to make - maybe just an initial for a bedroom door, or a whole name for the kids’ room, or a relevant word for the kitchen or playroom (e.g. EAT or PLAY). Then either choose a nice bold font and print out the letters as large as you can, or if you don’t have a printer just draw them freehand in the next stage. If you’re making a word you can have each letter a slightly different size/font/case to give it a less uniform look. I have made my name - for my B and first S I used Times New Roman at 800pt, the E is Palatino 600 pt and the second S is Georgia 600pt.

2. Cut out your printed letter and trace around it onto the cardboard, or draw a letter freehand if you like.

3. Use your craft knife to cut out the letter you’ve drawn and don’t worry about following the line perfectly. If you’d like a thicker letter you could glue two pieces of cardboard together then cut out once dry.

 

4. Time to decorate!

If you’re going to paint your letter it’s good to start off with a layer of white, then once that’s dry you can do whatever you like with whatever you have handy. Painted spots, stripes, flowers,… and you can glue things on, like sequins or buttons or glitter.

5. Display! Hang from a tack hammered into the wall, use double sided tape or blue tack or prop up on a shelf to be admired.

 

Small Projects - Crinkly Robot by Prudent Baby

Our guest post today is from Jacinda and Jaime, the talented duo over at Prudent Baby. Their site is chock full of craft projects for babies and kids, the nursery, moms (Hot Mess Mommy-love that!) and cooking recipes. Today they show us how to make Crinkly Robots. Take it away ladies…

Crinkly Robot

We came up with these little crinkly robots especially for Smaller. And we are kinda geeking over it because we are huge fans of Small and everything else these gals touch. But back to the 'bots… here's how to make your own little crinkly robot with loads of ribbon-tag goodness.
 

 

Collect your supplies. You will need:

- Print-out of Robot template Click here

- A crinkly piece of plastic. Travel wipe bags work well.

- 2 - 5x7" pieces of wool felt (this is a good time to use the nice stuff that you've been hoarding.)   They can be the same or complimentary colors.

- Scraps of felt

- Ribbon

- Needle and thread (sewing or embroidery will work)

- Head Pins

- Scissors

- Sewing Machine (optional)

2. Lay down the 2 pieces of felt with the plastic bag sandwiched in between.

3. Lay the robot template on top (pin, if you like) and cut through all layers. (You may cut your plastic separately to save your scissor blades but the felt should be cut together.

4. Cut out the decorative elements from the scrap felt and arrange on your robot.

5. Stitch any layered pieces including the zig-zag on the chest, and the eyes on their background.

 

6. Stitch all of the decorative elements onto the front layer of your robot. Make sure the stitches are very secure.

7. Trim your plastic so that it is not showing around the edge of the felt.

 

8. Assemble the robot with the plastic sandwiched between the two pieces of felt and pin your ribbon tags into the seam. Each piece of ribbon is folded in half.

9. If you are using a sewing machine, zig-zag stitch around the entire outside edge of the felt so that one stitch falls off the edge of the felt, simulating an overlock stitch. Stitch the ribbon tags into the robot as you go.

 

If you are hand-stitching, use a whip-stitch or blanket stitch to secure edge and attach ribbon tags all the way around.

10.  And that's it!

Thank you Jacinda and Jaime!!!

Prudent Baby

Small projects- Tie-dye Easter eggs

Easter is coming early this year so its time to start making eggs already. The talented Robert Mahar of Mahar Dry Goods (who puts together the Small finds page in each issue of Small) has produced a Tie-Dye Easter Egg Kit. Each kit contains materials to create at least 24 eggs: recycled silk ties, fabric wrappers, twist ties and easy to follow instructions. All of the materials are re-usable allowing you to make dozens of decorated eggs. The kit contents are neatly packaged in a clear egg shaped box that’s perfect for displaying your decorated eggs. The results are fantastic but easy to replicate over and over at home.  Be sure to check out his other site The Junior Society for tons of other great ideas and tips. 

Small projects - Monstrous Shadows!

Ringo and Little Circus are running a lovely workshop making shadow monsters. You can even download your own sheet of their shadow monsters if you would rather play with their puppets.

The top two images are by japanese artist minim++ and a cat by Colette Hyvrard

Small projects- Egg Cosies!

The wonderfully talented Bess Harding of Beeb Design has sent us another super cool craft you can do with your kids. Bess lives in London and is an  illustrator/designer/maker. If you would like to have her work in your own home, her etsy shop stocks her delightful characters and dolls as well as prints and illustrations.

Egg Cosies

With spring in the air and Easter around the corner, here’s a very quick and easy way of making chick and bunny egg cosies - with two options depending on how handy you (or the kids) are with knitting needles.

You will need:

Old woolen jumpers or tops, ideally grey/cream/yellow/orange (washed)

OR wool and knitting needles

Felt - ideally orange/yellow, grey and pink

Scissors

Glue (PVA or similar)

Thread (any color)

White paper or card

Black pen

1. Take the arm of your washed jumper and cut the bottom of the sleeve off, around 10cm above the cuff.

OR

Knit a rectangle in whatever stitch you like, making it roughly 20cm x 10cm. Then fold over and sew the two short edges together (using the same wool) to make a tube.

 

2. Cut out the felt headgear - so two grey ears and a little pink nose for a bunny, and an orange triangle beak and orange/yellow comb for a chick (not anatomically correct but it looks good!).

3. Turn your tube inside out and insert the felt ears/comb so that they’re upside down and lined up with the top edge of the tube. You can put a dab of glue on the ends of the ears/comb if you like, then scrunch up the surrounding fabric (the most important thing is to get a firm grip on the ears/comb) and tightly wind and tie a length of thread around it all, about 1cm down from the top. If you’ve knitted your own you can use the extra length of wool to tie this off.

 

4. Now turn it back the right way and you should have a sort of hat shape with either ears or comb sticking out of the top.

5. Now time to give them faces, so pick the best looking side and glue on the felt beak/nose you cut out earlier, somewhere in the middle, then cut out little circles of white paper/card for the eyes, draw on a black dot in the middle of each one and glue in place.

 

6. Optional extras at this stage include felt wings for the chick and a cotton wool tail for the bunny (see pictures). Also, although grey and yellow are more authentic, you could have a spotty chick or a stripy bunny, depending on what old sweaters or wool you have to hand.

These might not last forever, but they’re fun and satisfying to make, and will look good keeping eggs warm on your Easter breakfast table!

Please send along any photos of your finished crafts to [email protected] we would love to see your designs too!

Beeb Design

Beeb Etsy shop

Small projects- how to make a floor rug!

We have a new Craft editor here at Small. Lisa Murray is one of the craftiest people I have ever met and we are so excited to have her on board.

Ever since we first became friends when my sister was sharing a house with her in the late 90's I have admired her clean yet hand made aesthetic. Her house on stilts overlooking the river is full of her amazing projects. Now she has her own adorable little one she is turning her hand to kids crafts. This rug was the perfect mat when little Griffin was learning to sit. Easy to clean and super padded for any tumbles. I think this would be perfect of any room and could be made with any sturdy fabric, canvas or even an old quilt that you have on hand.

How to make a felt rug …

 

You will need –

One piece of fairly thick felt (1cm thick)

One blanket, or covering

One chalk pencil

One ribbon

One pin

 

* Felt can be purchased from Australian Felt specialists or just do a search for a supplier in your town. 

* Army blankets can be purchased inexpensively from Army disposal stores. Or, failing    

   that ask a yoga studio or moving company or just look around a thrift store or even your grandmothers cupboard.

 

Step 1

Decide how big you want your rug and cut a length of ribbon to roughly fit from the center to the outside edge

 

Step 2

Pin one end of the ribbon to the center of the felt and attach the chalk pencil to the other

Use this to draw the circle onto your piece of felt & cut it out

 

 

 

Step 3

Using your felt circle as a pattern piece, lay it on your blanket and cut out another circle 10, or 15cm bigger than the last. This overlap will be used to wrap around the edge of your felt circle

 

Step 4

Folding the edges round as you go sew the blanket to the felt circle by hand.

 

If I had my time on this project again I’d sew elastic round the edges of my blanket so it sat like a fitted sheet to my felt, this way it could be interchangeable and washable – very tricky!

Small projects - Valentines day craft round up

Some simple craft projects for Valentines day...or just for the love!

Love shadow box, heart softie and Valentines day place-mat from Moomah

For a weekly dose of easy creative kids crafts, including valentines day ideas like this heart tree, sign up to Kids Craft Weekly and have it delivered to your inbox.

Jumpin' Juliet party favor from Mahar Dry Goods

Crayon shaving heart decals from Fuzzy Sheep Crafts

Matchbox treats from Jane and the Ducks

Smal projects - papier mâché money box

The wonderfully talented Bess Harding recently sent us this great craft. She makes beautiful prints and soft toys under the name Beeb, available from her Etsy shop and also keeps up a great blog of art, recipes and other things.

papier mâché money box

Here’s a creative way to encourage saving (which let’s face it everyone should try and do a bit more of these days) with a new take on the old piggy bank, using papier mâché.

What you will need:

1. Balloons
2. Newspaper ripped into strips roughly 2cm wide
3. Wallpaper paste (or flour and water mixed to a paste)
4. Craft knife
5. Masking tape
6. Acrylic paints & paintbrushes
7. A bit of patience

 

1. Blow up your balloon, until it has a diameter of around 10cm - go larger or smaller depending on how much money you’re planning to save! Use a small piece of masking tape to flatten down the end of the balloon.

2. Being liberal with the wallpaper paste, apply the newspaper strips to the balloon, smoothing as you go and making sure you cover every little bit. Repeat until you’ve built up a few layers all over. It’s better to have the walls as thick as possible so you get a nice sturdy globe. Then – and this is where the patience comes in – you need to leave it in an airy place for a couple of days, until the newspaper is bone dry.

3. When it is dry, and it should feel quite solid, take your craft knife and carefully cut a slot/mouth for the money to go in. If it hasn’t already, the balloon will pop and you can jiggle it towards the hole you’ve made to pull it out. Then, if the edges of the hole you’ve made look a bit raw, use some masking tape to smooth them off.

4. Now it’s time to create your monster! I’ve painted a layer of white all over to begin with, and then using the money slot/mouth as a starting point, painted a face around it. You could make a friendly monster with flowers on it, or a scary monster, or a spotty one, or a stripy one. I’ve finished mine off with a layer of varnish to give it a bit of a shine. Once it’s dry it’s time to start saving!

 

p.s. You might have noticed that there’s no way to open the monster, this is on purpose so that you can’t dip in to your savings until you really need to. When the time is right, you’ll have to sacrifice your monster, using a craft knife or scissors to carefully enlarge the money slot until you can get your money out, then you can start on a new one!

Contributed by Bess Harding

Small projects- competitive crafting!

Why not sharpen your skills with some friendly crafting competition....

RikRak Studios present the 2010 Handmade Olympics. With eight crafting events to enter, fantastic judges and prizes it should be a lot of fun as well as a great chance to get your crafted lovelies out to a larger audience.

Threadless has an enormous 10,000$ prize up for grabs for anew t shirt design that will launch a new trend.

Etsy and Cool Mom Picks  are running a competition for a down-loadable coloring-in valentine's day card for kids.

Small projects - make your own costumes

Another adorable costume from the Small magazine files by Valerie Mangum for a shoot last fall with Nick Prendergast. We love her free form style and creative approach to winging it!

Valarie: This costume turned out very sweet. nesting dolls are popular in the craft world, and I felt it'd make such a cute costume. the final product is completely different than my first ideas (and much simpler!). The skirt is basically a bubble skirt made from vintage fabric, stuffed with tulle, with an apron sewn onto it. The stole is the same idea: the piece that hangs from the shoulders bubbles under and is stuffed with tulle as well.

The doll she is holding is made out of the same fabrics as the costume and the faces are embroidered.

I had planned to share how i created the costume in more detail, but as I began writing instructions, I decided to be honest and admit that I'm not a pattern maker. I made this costume and the others featured here and here from scratch, trying to copy the sketches in my notebook. I basically jumped into it and had a blast! I kept an open mind, knowing that as the costumes took form they'd become very different than I had imagined. Many times I just started without even knowing what I had in mind.

Small projects - conkers

Amy Turn Sharp of Little Alouette makes beautiful wooden toys and teethers for wee ones. You can see them on her website or pick them up for the babies in your life from her shop. 

Amy: My husband grew up in the North of England. He likes to share British traditions with our family. Conkers is a fabulous British game that children all over the island play with glee in the autumn.

Conkers are horse chestnuts or buckeyes here in the states. Conkers is a playground game of skill that is simple to play and fiercely competitive!

 The only items needed are conkers, string, and some determination.

1. Choose some perfect conkers. This makes for a lovely walk through the woods together! Find firm, symmetrical, and un-cracked conkers.
2. Drill or push small hole through the conker from top to bottom. (Metal skewers work as well as a drill!)
3. Insert thin shoestring or twine through the conker and knot the end. (About 24 inches is perfect length)
4. Player one  dangles the string with attached conker while the other person swings their conker, trying to make contact and break the conker! Each player can have three turns to try and defeat and crack the conker!
5. The victor is the one to destroy the others conker first!

There is a National Conkers Championship each October in England. 

It is some serious sport there! We just hope you have fun in the woods and playing a natural game.

Xo The Sharp Family

Little Alouette

Small diy costumes- little red riding hood and the big bad wolf

We always think half the fun of Halloween is making the costumes. If you are looking for a costume you can put together your self Halloween (or just for the dress up box) we have two more fabulous DIY costume from Valarie Mangum and photographed last Fall for Small issue 8 by Nick Prendergast

Valerie: I completely adore the pig/wolf softie designed by Lizette Greco. I used her pattern from the softies book (edited by Therese Laskey of Softies Central) to make the snout on the hat. He has felt eyes and pointy ears. The hands are two pieces of fabric rounded at one end, sewn together with white felt triangles on the round end for claws that aren't too mean. The feet are made of one piece of fabric rounded at the end and elastic that goes underneath. they are meant to go over shoes. I thought the red suspenders made him look more sophisticated and innocent.

Valerie: This is a basic cape with scalloped edges. I sewed a line of vintage mismatched buttons down the front. Her wrap around skirt is white w/ red polka dots and 2 layers of red tulle. I cut some small flowers out of Amy Butler's cherry wallflower fabric and appliqued them to the front. Her fairy tale look is complete with a pointy hat that isn't attached to the cape.

Small projects - Where the Wild Things Are

The Wild Things are here!

Grecolaborativo is a family collaboration made up of a couple creating with their young daughter and son. Their plush art is created under the name Lizette Greco, and is based on their own children's drawings and made using only thrifted and recycled materials. They also accept commissions for pieces using drawings from other children. Their aim is to create artwork that celebrates a child's perspective of the world and will hopefully be passed from generation to generation. Recently Lizette told us how to make these fun costumes based on 'Where the Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak.

Wild Things and Max Suit

This 'Wild Thing' and 'Max' suit is like a large footed fleece pajama with big feet, claws and a tail attached. The head piece is separate and a little more work so make sure your child will be willing to wear one before you invest your time in it. Don't worry if by the time your child goes out the door wearing this costume, the tail and one ear is held by a safety pin here and there. Ours did.

Easy claws: take two rectangles of thin black fabric, put them together and draw zig-zags. These are the claws (four claws are enough). Sew following the lines and then cut the excess fabric that makes the triangles in between the claws. Turn inside out and stuff your claws lightly and sew them shut. Attach them to the end of the "sleeve", but only to one side (top side) of the sleeve so that the hand is free to come from under the claws and reach out for candy. You need to make a total of four sets of claws to attach to both hands and feet.

Big Furry Feet: First, take a comfortable shoe the child will wear to go trick or treating. Place it on top of a two inch thick foam rectangle. The rectangle must be about two inches wider than the shoe all around (hence the big feet). Trace the shoe over the foam, remove shoe and cut the shape you just traced. Insert shoe in this space and make sure the foam is held firm around the shoe. Cover this big foot with fabric making sure you catch the claws at the tip of the foot. Use thick black fabric for the sole which might get dirty and/or wet. You can either attach the foot piece to the leg or just let the leg fall loosely over it. 

Head piece (Wild Thing): Start by measuring and cutting a big sack-like-piece that goes widely over and around the head. Sew it as a sack and then trace and cut a wide slit for the mouth. Big teeth are made just like the claws but bigger and in white. Ears are big circles folded in half. Eyes are half covered in fabric, and faux fur for eyebrows. Glue pupil on as well. Once assembled, eyes are sewn to the top of the head . The nose is a loosely stuffed rectangle. Pin the corners without stuffing to make nostrils. Hand sew nose in place just below eyes. Cut, sew and stuff two big horns and attach to head as well. The head piece will be wobbly so the child can wear a baseball cap or any other hat that can be hidden under the head piece. You can pin or hand sew the head piece to the hat to keep it from sliding side ways.

Head piece (Max): After making another Wild Thing suit for our then four-year-old son, we discovered that he didn't want to wear a big head piece. That's how he ended up wearing a Max-like-suit that matches the colors of the Wild Thing. Max's head piece is just a hood with ears attached. Long rectangle folded in half over the head. Sew the back of the hood closed. Sew a button and cut a slit to keep the hood in place (under chin). Cut two circles, fold them in half and sew them in place as ears. 

Grecolaborativo

Lizette Greco

Small DIY costumes: kokeshi doll

Last Fall one of our favorite art directors Valerie Mangum made a series of amazing DIY costumes for a shoot for Small photographed by Nick Prendergast . We thought it would be great to show them to you again in the run up to Halloween along with the instructions from Valerie that we couldn't fit along side the shoot when we published it in issue 8 of Small.

Valerie: 'The kimono is vintage but you could easily make a simple one by cutting down an old dressing gown. I made the obi out of Amy Butler fabric and put wire in the hem of the obi to help it keep its shape. The model is wearing white tights with traditional Japanese shoes, but flip flops would work just fine. The best part about this costume is her wig, which is made out of strips of white polar fleece. I criss-crossed the strips over each other like lines making an astrix symbol until it looked almost like a circle. it wasn't cut into a bob until we put it on the model to make sure it was the right length.'

Small diy - jack-o-lantern candy bag

This weekend I spent some time with my two kids at SpaceCraft in Brooklyn. Spacecraft is a unique craft space and supply boutique with daily walk-in crafting projects for adults and kids of every level. We had a great day making some fun Halloween crafts with Esther and Ella two sisters there for a day of fun.

To make the bag we picked a bright orange shirt with a front pocket so the bag could have a little outside pocket. Be as imaginative as you want...a white shirt could become a ghost or skeleton, a green shirt can be a ghoul or monster, and red shirt can be a strawberry....If stenciling seems too complicated you could easily paint on a design with fabric paint.

What you will need:
-T-shirt
-scissors
-spray bottle 
-fabric ink-could be plain black or not
-cardboard or old towel
-construction paper or old brown paper bag
-fabric pencil or pen

What to do:
1: First lay the shirt flat and cut the bottom hem off.
2: Cut two extra  1" inch strips off as well
3: Take the strips and stretch them until they become long bands
4: Take a piece of paper -construction or old brown paper bag cut up- and draw out a jack o'lantern face or any spooky pattern you like.
5: Cut out to make a stencil
6: Place a piece of cardboard or old towel between the front and back of the shirt and place paper stencil on top of the shirt. Be careful to place it higher on the shirt as more of the bottom will be cut and threaded at the end.
7: With a spray bottle and fabric ink spray cover the holes in the stencils right to the edges. You can use a hair blow dryer to dry the ink faster.
8: Once the ink is dry take off paper stencil from the top and the cardboard from the middle of the shirt.
9: Cut off the arms at the shoulders, the neckband, and round off the bottom by cutting at the left and right bottom corners. Take both the stretched loop strips and cut them so they become long strings.
10: Cut a half inch hole at base of arm hole and thread string through, tie a knot to hold.

11: Keep cutting half inch holes and thread string in an over-under-over-under pattern until you get to the middle of the bottom.
12: Repeat on the other side and when the 2 strings meet up tie them off in the middle with a bow or fancy knot with wooden beads hanging.

Voila! You have a re-usable trick or treat bag!

Spacecraft
355 Bedford Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Reported by Small associate-editor Jasmine Astronomo-Berger

Small play - AK traditions

AK was originally designed as a gallery to showcase the rich, and diverse textile heritage of central Asia, in particular that of the mounted nomads of the Kyrgyz Republic.
All AK products are designed in Melbourne and made by skilled artisans in the Kyrgyz Republic using with natural fibres such as yarn-dyed cotton and handmade and dyed wool felt.  AK artisan quality products are intended to be stylish and witty with a cross–generational appeal that is unaffected by the whims of the mass market – modern classics with a strong sense of tradition.
AK traditions : Handmade wool felt in unique colors and a diverse range of items that includes artisan quality felt toys, dolls, quilts, home-wares, accessories, handwork kits and hand knitting and much more.

Small Projects - Scrap fabric necklaces

One thing we have a lot of is fabric scraps and so we are always excited to find something we can do with them as it is too sad to throw them away...even when there is just a ragged strip left. So we are really excited Rubyellen of My Cakies shared this idea with us. We loved these necklaces from My Cakies so much we used them in our the summer issue. (you can see them here and here ). Rubyellen's shop is full of charming celebration crowns, hand-made clips and small gifts and accessories.

How to make a scrap Fabric Necklace - Something beautiful can always be made from leftovers!

You will need: scissors, 4 rubber bands, fabric scraps ( the longer the better) coordinating thread.


1.    Choose your scrap fabrics.
2.    Take your scrap fabric, cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand. Repeat until you have nice large pile of strips (approximately 9 strips, more if some strips are particularly short).
3.    For the longest strand, gather 3 of the longest strips and tie the beginning end together with a rubber band.
4.    Braid the 3 pieces together until about 34’’ long and tie both ends together with rubber band when done. You can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, grab another strip and weave it into the braid.

5.    Repeat steps 2 & 3 for additional strands.  The second longest strand, once braided, should be about 30’’ long. The shortest strand, once braided, should be about 28’’ long.
6.    To sew a strand together, remove the rubber band, gather each end of the strand together (with ends slightly overlapping) and zigzag stitch ends together with sewing machine. Repeat to close the other strands. Snip off any excess.
7.    To sew all 3 of the strands together, line up the sewn ends together (side-by-side) and zigzag stitch all three strands together. This is to reinforce all three strands together. Another option to close the necklace is to sew a 10’’ strip of coordinating ribbon at each end, which allows the necklace to be tied closed. Snip of any excess fabric or thread.

8.    Voila! Put on and wear… it is beautiful and stylish way to make use of all your lovely scraps.

My Cakies shop and blog

Small Projects - Summer Tweets

Lisa Tilse of the The Red Thread put together an enchanting hanging bird mobile for our latest issue of Small. You can find the article here but she had many more photos than we could fit in the magazine so we wanted to include all of them here so your hoops can be as beautiful as hers!

You will need:
Newspaper
Scissors
Sicky tape and PVA glue
Fabric scraps, Rattan cane hoops (from craft shops)
Small styrofoam balls - optional
Embroidery thread and a long needle

Swings:
Cut brightly coloured and patterned fabric into strips measuring about 1 inch wide and roughly 12 inches long. Wind a strip around a hoop, leaving roughly 3 inches loose at each end. Take a second fabric strip and tie it to the end of the first strip with a double knot. Leave the ends sticking out. Wind the new strip around your hoop, and continue tieing and winding fabric strips until you cover the whole hoop. Tie the end of the last strip to the beginning of the first strip. Cover a second hoop the same way.
Insert one hoop into the other so they form an X. Join them together at the top by wrapping some embroidery thread around at the point where the hoops cross.

Birds:
For each bird you will need to make the following pieces: a beak, head, body and tail. As well as 2 long flat folded strips. The head and body are spheres and the tail is formed by shaping a ball into a cone shape with flat ends. You can see the shapes in the photo. 

Follow the instructions for cheat’s papier mache to make the bird here.

 

Attach the head to the body and then the tail to the body with sticky tape. Then roll a small strip of newspaper up to form a cone for the beak and attach it to the head. Next take two squares of newspaper (that you’ve previously scrunched and flattened) and fold them into long strips. Wrap one strip around your bird where the head joins the body and one where the tail joins. This will hide the joins and enhance the body shape. Use lots of sticky tape to make the joins smooth.

Cut fabric scraps into small squares 2 -3 cm in size and follow the cheat’s papier mache instructions to cover your bird. Set your bird aside to dry.

When your bird is dry take a piece of embroidery thread and tie it around the bird. Adjust the position of the thread until the bird hangs correctly. Stick it in place with tape and then cover it with additional pieces of fabric so the thread is hidden.

Cut 2 wings from fabric. If you can, find a shape on your fabric that mimics the shape of a wing. Place your bird on a piece of cling wrap. Fold up 2 pieces of paper towel and place them under the cling wrap on either side of the bird. Coat both sides of the entire wings with PVA and attach the top of the wings to the bird’s body. Adjust the paper towel so the bottom of the wings sit out and away from the body. The PVA will make the wings dry hard. 

When your bird is dry tie the thread to the covered hoop swing so your bird hangs in the center of the swing.

Garlands:

If you’d like your Summer Tweets to hang from a garland cover your styrofoam balls with fabric scraps and PVA in the same way you covered your bird. I used styrofoam balls of 4cm and 5cm diameter.

When dry, thread your covered styrofoam balls onto a long piece embroidery thread using a long needle. This will form the garland that your Summer Tweet hangs from. Position the balls with uneven spacing on the thread. Then join the garland to the top of the hoop swing by wrapping it around and tieing a knot to secure it.

 Now you’re ready to hang your Summer Tweet. You can make all sorts of variations on the birds and the swings and add craft feathers to make a showy tail or wings.

The Red Thread

Small Projects - Mini Moderns & Clothkits

Mini Moderns have teamed up with Clothkits to create a collection of dresses and skirts using the Mini Moderns library of print designs.  We featured Mini Moderns 'Town Bag' in the Spring Issue of Small. Mini Moderns print designs are amazing, with retro and modern influences ranging from textile designs of the 1950’s to vintage toys and games.

 
Clothkits are clever because instead of requiring paper patterns, the cutting lines are printed directly on the fabric and each kit comes with the thread and buttons. Now even an inexperienced sewer can make a beautiful, well designed garment or gift.

Clothkits
Mini Moderns